Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now!

Since the release of Beta, we’ve been hard at work making final touches, addressing top customer feedback from Beta, and improving performance across the IDE. Take an in-depth look at what’s new in the Release Candidate (RC) of Visual Studio 2012 RC and .NET Framework 4.5 on Jason Zander’s blog. We also encourage you to check out the new Windows 8 App Developer Blog to learn more about how to build great Metro style apps for Windows 8.

If you encounter a bug or an issue, please report it through the Visual Studio, LightSwitch, and Blend Connect sites. We also want to hear your suggestions or feature ideas/improvements so please add your suggestions to UserVoice or vote on other user’s suggestions.

We know that most of you are dedicated to ISO images. As Cathy mentions we have provided those for those who want to use these.

In listening to administrators. I know how frustrating it can be to download an ISO, mount it and then start to use the mounted image only to find out that the image was corrupted. So then you pull out your hashing check, have to look for the validation code and redownload the ISO image.

To avoid such frustration, we engineered the vs_ultimatelayout.exe. This product avoids many of the pitfalls associated with downloading a very garganuan ISO image, through using the web bootstrapper technology to create a distribution point to a location that you desire. This eliminates the need for mounting software, knowing hash codes. Further, the web bootstrapper utilizes multiple downloading protocols in order to ensure a robust download and ensures that each binary downloaded is valid, otherwise it will automatically redownload or if it fails will let you know.

We hope that you will try out the vs_ultimatelayout.exe and send us feedback about your experience.

Thanks!

Aaron Ruckman

Program Manager, Visual Studio Setup Team

5 years ago

Is that an answer to where the 'Pro' ISO is?

Where is the 'Pro' ISO? Is there a 'Pro' ISO or not? A simple link, or a "there isn't one" is the only proper response.

@Upgrade process … yes, you can upgrade TFS Server from BETA to RC. Also see the Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide (vsarupgradeguide.codeplex.com/…/88355) which covers upgrade scenarios and post-upgrade issues for Team Foundation Server 2012 RC and associated technologies.

5 years ago

Josh

I am sorry but I HATE the new logo, the existing logo was soooo cool…..

I really like the setup experience… smooth transitions, and very few options to think about. A few clicks and you're done.

But I agree with Josh, the new logo isn't as good as the one from the beta…

5 years ago

Chris

What about?

1. VC++ and direct XP targeting?

2. VS Express and desktop development?

5 years ago

Jojo

How can i change the language of the ISO image?

It's always choosing the german version by default, because i'm living in Germany, but i want to install the english version of Visual Studio Ultimate. Is there a direct link to the english version of the ISO image?

5 years ago

Jeff

Wait… this is free for everyone? I'm assuming it will either self-destruct or become illegal to use once VS2012 is really released?

5 years ago

RB Whitaker

I'm excited about the new version, but the menus being in all-caps and the square-iness of the logo are distracting, if not downright ugly.

5 years ago

Andi

Why complaining about CAPS in the menu and a logo?

Are you guys programming or looking at your ide? How about learning the short cuts?

5 years ago

Vaccano

MS has really messed up Enterprise developers with this release.

If you code with VS 11 and intend to run your app on Windows XP using the "Target .NET 4.0" feature, then when you debug you will not experience the bugs that were fixed in .NET 4.5.

Meaning that you will not know you are relying on a "fixed" bug until you release to you XP users. (Or you have to try to re-test your app to make sure you did not rely on one of those fixed bugs. Which is hard because Microsoft will not release a full list of what they fixed!)

I am so angry about this!@!!! We are going to have to BAN Visual Studio 11 and .NET 4.5.

BAN it!!! Do you hear me Microsoft? I can't even let my Developers Install this junk because you made it an in-place upgrade!

I was one who thought ALL-CAPS-gate was an overreaction (wasn't a fan but it was the least of my concerns), but that logo, it's the visually strongest element in the IDE and it's the most useless element in the IDE. Your eyes are constantly drawn to that logo. At the very least use a shade of grey, preferably make it smaller too.

5 years ago

Michael Csikos

@Craig As the 'top senior developer' at your company, I hope your boss read your comment, because at my company that would be grounds for dismissal. That is the most ridiculous reason to skip a whole version of Visual Studio I have ever heard of. As Chris said, just hide the menu with the extension. And the new VS has a plethora of other improvements which will improve productivity, too.

5 years ago

Pete

Was the new logo inspired by "Harold and the Purple Crayon?" 🙂

5 years ago

Rc

On Build 8329, I get following error when installing VS2012RC ultimate.

The .Net Framework installed on this machine does not meet the minimum required version: 4.5.50501.

how to get .et 4.5.50501 ?

–Rc

5 years ago

fuzzy

i also experiencing the error "The .NET Framework installed on this machine does not meet the minimum required version: 4.5.50501." even though i already installed the 4.5 framework, it seems like this is an isolated issue

5 years ago

Mr X

Please, fix download link for Spanish ISO version of VS '12 Pro. Currently, it point out to the English version, not to "VS11_RC_PRO_ESN.iso."

So you still can't use the new c++ language features in code that must run on XP? Argh!

Count me out. I can get this "free" through my company's MSDN account, but why bother? We need to support our customers who still use XP, so we might as well stick with VS2010. Or maybe we should try harder to find tools from a company that really cares about c++ development. C++ renaissance. Right.

5 years ago

Tim

@Aaron Ruckman

I would have tried the product layout (professional naturally, stop spruiking the outrageously expensive ultimate). But some bright spark only lists it as "Product Layout File" which means jack squat to I'd sat pretty much anyone else. So i got the ISO and i only get 200GB a month so im not gonna try again. Next time try informing users of the download options clearly.

5 years ago

e

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5 years ago

sigh

Can anyone with enUS or enGB system locale please post the direct link to those ISOs. For some unknown reason MS thought it would be smart to auto redirect downloads to localized ISOs…

5 years ago

Pieter Jelle de Vries

Instead of commenting on all the styling, I would like to complement you guys for such a great work! Thank you for allowing us to be able to try this product and use it for the specified time. I have confidence that each release will get better up to the final product. I hope you remain focused on what you know to be the best outcome.

5 years ago

Daniel

Avoid this for now if you have SSDT Installed, you are greeted with a lot of errors both in VS 2012 AND VS 2010 after upgrading 🙁

I'm really disappointed about the lack of color in the solution explorer. I thought the VS team was bringing back color, but most of the icons are still monochrome. I stare at that thing all day, and with monochrome it hurts my eyes. This is the first release of VS in 10 years where I don't want to move to it.

Please please please make xaml and classes files stand out and easily distinguishable in the solution explorer. Adding a smidgen of color is not enough. Make them stand out! I know you've made .cs files slightly green, but come on!

5 years ago

Rory O'Donnell

Over the last couple of releases, you've given with one hand, and taken away with the other. Please stop it.

Please get rid of the BIGGG window top-left corner icon. I don't mind new logo design, but I mind that it is too big. Makes an impression that it might be an Office2007-like orb button, except that it is not. And it won't activate when clicking in top-left screen corner, as it should.

Also, please add some distinctive colour for the title bar. There is too much monotone gray empty screen surface now to the right of the toolbars.

My overall impression is that the light theme is too light, and the dark theme is too dark.

Adding some linework and more shades would help.

5 years ago

fred

Where is the Object and Timeline in Visual Studio 2012 / How do I create + edit Storyboards, and where is the WPF support in Blend – am I going mad? should I get mad ?

5 years ago

GT.

The product is better in many aspects, except the UI is not easy to use!

1) Will wait for VS.NET 2014

2) Will have a look at Eclipse or Netbeans for html development, they are horrible, but maybe they improved a bit, who knows.

5 years ago

Zouzou

I have already commented when you posted screenshots but now that I see VS 2012 in action and have tried to use it, the ridiculous GUI changes appear even worse to me: whenever I am using VS 2012, I feel like VS isn't selected so I keep clicking inside it, waiting for that grey title bar to change color. This is just one of many reasons why drawing a custom chrome is beyond stupid. There are other reasons, such as making it harder to drag the window, or harder to locate the close button.

Aside from the title bar always looking as if it were in a non-focused state, I have had trouble with grey icons and the little bit of colors you added. Please stop insulting us by continuously claiming you listen to us, when the top feedback has been to revert your failed monochrome icons to those in VS 2010.

The icons to comment / uncomment code are nonsensical; at the very least, they should be reversed: "X" should mean "remove code", ie "comment".

I didn't think you could do worse than the previous beta in terms of UI but you actually have. These "custom" title bar, menu bar & toolbar are worthless. They only add confusion. Pathetic.

@Zouzou: yes, there is a semantical error with the comment/uncomment icons. Now they depict "creating a new comment" and "removing an existing comment", but they are NEVER used in this sense. Rather, they should mean "make this code fragment a comment", and "make this fragment a code again".

5 years ago

Joshua Jericho

Bugger off microsoft with your METROED VS 2012 We have spoken, we told you we hate all you have done with vs in this iteration and you have not listened so f*** off

5 years ago

Yepeekai

I really liked the smooth installation of the rc over the beta.

It is different, but I am one of the people who actually liked the background gray in the beta, but that gray has changed to light light gray in the RC and I liked the beta better. I think it would be great to have more than 2 themes.

The title bar is bigger because of the bigger icon, which remove space for the important things, so I think the icon should be smaller. On the other end, I think it is great to have moved the quick search to the title bar, which make use of that empty space, and it is still visible when hiding the menu via extensions.

So far, I like the new visual studio a lot. It is incredibly faster than vs2010 and the interface is better IMO.

That's great! Now if only we can find a DWORD that enables XP support…

5 years ago

Adam

Is there a DWORD to replace the horrendous UI with that of VS 2010?

5 years ago

Dean

What was wrong with the nice icons and graphics in VS2010. This looks like my 5 year old has been playing with paint. really really bad.

Almost as bad as removing the start button from Win 8 !!

5 years ago

Dean

@Adam – that's funny. Yeah, and all this is because they fear being left out of the tablet space…you can trace it all back to trying to push Win 8 "apps". Bull-headed.

5 years ago

Amir

Could someone from English-speaking countries please post a download link to the English Professional ISO? One ending with VS2012_RC_PRO_ENU.iso . Not giving an option of choosing iso language was really silly and annoying.

5 years ago

Chris

Light theme is totally unusable, it's too bright and hurts your eyes.

The dark theme is totally messed up. It's mostly dark and then there are some random icons that have color. And the damn PURPLE status bar???? What the fk? It's a dark theme, keep it dark.

5 years ago

Floele

The colorization of the solution explorer is still not good enough. Adding some dak blue colors that pretty much look like black was particularly useless. At the very least, the folders need to be yellow, as this has been the case since *ever*. The VS 2010 explorer and overall design is still much superior to the current RC.

As much as I like the speed improvements in VS 11, the user interface is quite disappointing. Even more so in the RC, since you do not seem to pay attention to user complaints. You removed the all caps from the tool windows because of a plethora of complaints, only to add the same annoying capitalisation to the menu bar. Seriously?

5 years ago

Jim

WHY ARE THE MENUS YELLING AT ME? PLEASE STOP YELLING AT US.

5 years ago

Jim

I'm not usually one to get too worked up over change but this is the worst UI overhaul I've ever experienced in a product. I’ve read many of the justifications and rationales but that’s all part of an attempt to apply science to a discipline that doesn’t allow it. There are so many frustrating flaws from search boxes I can’t see because everything is white to ALL CAPS menus that make my eyes wig out. Going to be a long few years between releases.

5 years ago

Joseph

Can someone tell me where the WPF animation/timeline support is in Visual Studio 2012, or where the WPF Blend support is? It's gone AWOL hasn't it ? This is ridiculous. Blend 4 was a much better UI then all this Metro crap that's been foistered on us. Hate the eye-burning coloured status bar too.

5 years ago

Jesse

I know you guys spent a lot of time on the new visuals for the beta, and listened to some feedback for the RC, but seriously… it's still Visual Studio And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad UI. The RC is a *slight* improvement over the beta, but not nearly enough.

… please, at the very least, include a "Visual Studio 2010" theme in RTM. The new features are cool and all, but I'm sure I'm not the only developer who's prepared to give up "async" in order to avoid this mess of a user interface.

[Translated into Metro for the Visual Studio UI team:]

… PLEASE, AT THE VERY LEAST, INCLUDE A "VISUAL STUDIO 2010" THEME IN RTM. THE NEW FEATURES ARE COOL AND ALL, BUT I'M SURE I'M NOT THE ONLY DEVELOPER WHO'S PREPARED TO GIVE UP "ASYNC" IN ORDER TO AVOID THIS MESS OF A USER INTERFACE.

5 years ago

Hoikas

Just tried RC… Here are my comments.

1) REMOVE ALL CAPS IN MENU HEADERS

2) Remove weird colored toolbar

3) Start page has random dark block in light theme

4) Start over with light theme entirely… or replace it with VS2010 mode.

5) Remove gigantic underline on pane headings

6) Reduce start up time

7) Make dialogs windows (tools, options, etc) dark when main UI is in dark mode

If the themes of light and dark are selectable, then how do we get a VS2010 version? It's got to be possible.

BTW: Does anyone else have an issue with the text on the menus? Mine are really thin and blocky, like it was just for 800×600 and then enlarged?

I like many others think this is a really poor attempt. I cannot see any time I will be developing a Win 8 Metro app, other than as a 'lite' window into the main app, so why am I forced to do everything metro?

5 years ago

Larry Andersen

So I'm not going to be a hater. The all-caps menus do not really bother me. It's a minor issue all things considered. I do think that since it is a registry key, why not make it configurable in the UI so that those who are so concerned can easily change it to their preference?

I do, however, agree with everyone that the title bar is too large and it does seem a little silly to have such a large icon for a development tool. And I will also agree with just about everyone that we still need more color in the icons. Color is such a huge factor in memorization and identification.

I did encounter a pretty big bug though. If you attempt to add a reference to a project tha already has that reference, the whole UI just locks up. I can reproduce this every time.

Everything else has been smooth sailing so far. I will say that the RC doesn't lock up nearly as much as the beta did. Keep up the good work folks.

5 years ago

Gerard

IF YOU FEEL THAT READING TEXT IN CAPITAL LETTERS IS EASIER, THEN KEEP THE MENUS AS IS. OTHERWISE, JUST GO BACK TO NORMAL LOWER CASE LETTERS. ALL CAPS MENUS ARE AN AWFUL "FEATURE". ALSO I UNDERSTOOD THAT AFTER ALL THE COMPLAINS COLORS WOULD BE BACK, I DON'T SEE THAT MANY COLORS IN THE ICONS.

HOW DID IT FEEL READING A TEXT IN UPPER CASE?

5 years ago

Gerard

I vote for a logo change. It's so ugly. This sort of flat square design is awful. I understand this is for tablets, but do we have to suffer for downgraded features when using PCs, only because a couple of developers will use tablets to use VS?

5 years ago

Ark-kun

Thanks for some color in icons. But we need more.

More color needed in icons in "New Project", "New Project Item", "Extension Manager", all toolbars, intellisense and, maybe, solution explorer. If you hate color so much, make it a option. Or maybe reveal the colors when mouse moves away from the code?

Gray on grey icons are useless – every designer will tell you how important the colors are. You made the Blend better, but crippled the Visual Studio in the process.

Visual Studio deserts Metro. I even created a comparison image for you:

Please bring back the colored icons from 2010. It's so hard to be productive with these dark gray icons (RC). Also, why 500,000 users (or however many use VStudio) choose from just 2 themes, especially when those 2 are so controversial??? MS always talks about "partners"…can "partners" developer more themes???

5 years ago

Some dude

Btw if anybody is interested I wrote and extension that removes the ALL CAPS and also the custom window chrome, since that was also a terrible idea. It will probably break with the final release since it worms its way pretty deep in there…but hey, it works now.

What a joke. I took the time out to install Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 "Release Candidate" and I can't even create a Metro project because of errors. KNOWN errors. Pathetic! This is a release candidate? We're all doomed. This KNOWN error shouldn't have made it into the Alpha release.

Instead of _improving_ functionality of VS you have spent years killing UI. Well done boys, update your CVs – You will need it soon

5 years ago

Jarvis Green

Dear Visual Studio Team,

In concluding your last blog post you wrote: "We also want to hear your suggestions or feature ideas/improvements so please add your suggestions to UserVoice or vote on other user’s suggestions." Why do you want to hear our suggestions or ideas for improvements? Why? You've just spent the last three months ignoring the majority of suggestions and ideas for improvements when it comes to the UI.

I'm amazed at your willful disregard for your user base. If there was one request that appeared repeatedly over the last three months, it was to please add color back to the Solution Explorer icons. Time after time, developers commented that they found color in Solution Explorer to be immensely helpful. It was stated repeatedly: when you make all the icons in Solution Explorer the same color you make their work harder.

Regarding the community feedback, you kept saying "We're listening." Ok, great, let's see how well you listened. For example, let's see how VS 2012 uses color in Solution Explorer for a basic MVC app: Folders, References, CSS files, javascript files, Razor views, html files, packages, web.config files, class diagrams, image files, database files, Entity Framework data models, XML files, XML Schema files and text files are all the same dark grey. Your big addition of color was to make the icon for C# files green. So of 16 types of icons you might find in an ASP.NET MVC app, you've added color to one of them. Gee, thanks for listening folks.

I'm at a loss to understand your stubborn refusal to adding meaningful color to Solution Explorer despite constant requests for it from users. I really just wish you would be honest with the community and stop with the patronizing "we want to hear your ideas" nonsense.

Here, I'll give you some helpful text you can copy and paste into your next blog post: "Hello everyone, feel free to give us your thoughts about the new UI design but be assured that ultimately we're going to do whatever the hell we want because, well, we can. Thanks and have a wonderful day."

5 years ago

PleaseFixYourBugs

@Jarvis Green:

"In concluding your last blog post you wrote: "We also want to hear your suggestions or feature ideas/improvements so please add your suggestions to UserVoice or vote on other user’s suggestions." Why do you want to hear our suggestions or ideas for improvements? Why? You've just spent the last three months ignoring the majority of suggestions and ideas for improvements when it comes to the UI."

Why, because if the majority will say that they like the flat, low-colors, all-caps UI, it's "you've asked for it and we delivered!" And if the majority will say that they don't like it, it's "only a small number of our customers visit these forums, our user base is much more diverse than that".

On a serious note, I think they are asking users for their opinion, because it is weird not to do that, nothing else. They don't listen to their users and then decide what to do, they first decide what to do and then attempt to justify it from what they hear from users. This doesn't always work, but that's fine.

5 years ago

One of many

I've tried RC. Sorry, but I'll stay with VS2010.

5 years ago

Jason

Dude, I'd run and hide on this one…don't tell anyone in the break room your involved. Cause this release is flat out busted.

Head over to uservoice and vote for the option of a VS2010 theme in VS2012: visualstudio.uservoice.com/…/2819619-leave-vs-2010-theme-and-the-theme-editor-extensio

5 years ago

M Aldin

The all-caps on the menu are horrible. It still feels like a monochrome IDE.

5 years ago

M Aldin

Brilliant … You cannot launch VS 2012 from the desktop by default (you have to manually create a shortcut) because Windows 8 has no start menu. Instead you have to go to the oh-so-clever home screen and run VS 2012 from there. But wait! what happens when you do that? Windows 8 goes back to desktop view, because VS 2012 is not an "App", so it can only run in desktop mode.

This is an example of how these latest products are heavy on the "fad" factor and not well thought out on usability. Unnecessary steps to do the simplest things.

5 years ago

rukidding

Thanks for wasting my time with this release. I have a customer base to support, and not being able to build and test to that base is a deal killer.

Because the .NET Framework and other run times built into Windows 8 are churning, then you have to use the Visual Studio and Windows 8 releases that match those run times. In this case you can install Visual Studio 2012 Beta (aka VS11) on Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio 2012 RC on Windows 8 Release Preview.

Thanks!

Aaron Ruckman

Program Manager, Visual Studio Setup

4 years ago

RP

I don't like the all caps. I think the toolbar icons could use more colour, too.

-The colorization of the solution explorer is still not good enough, it still feels like a monochrome IDE ,very difficult to use. please add more color to all IDE icons.

– Remove cap menu.

– I think VS2010 UI is much better than vs 2012 rc.

4 years ago

Chris C

Is it just me or is the quality of VS2012 worse then VS11 Beta? Nothing works anymore. Tried to uninstall, clean and reinstall several times and the quality of this product is sub-par every time. Crashes often, XAML editor and designer is a disaster (VS 2005 XAML editor performs better), tonnes of false error squiggles in C# editor, Intellisense barfs on simple things. Unit Testing explorer will crash VS every time it is displayed. Its like death from a bunch of tiny pin-points, it not one big thing that sucks, but the collective whole of the experience. I've posted about a dozen bugs already. So far I have to say the new VS is a disaster in UI/UX and apparently feature quality and it is VERY scarey the VS team is posting this as a release canditate.

Fire your Q/A department, they failed on this one.

4 years ago

Mattias Engman

It's very hard to distinguish different types of files, databases and folders etcetc when everything is in just dark gray…!? And the back in lighter gray… And it looks very booring, I really would like to have something like the 2010 UI back! We have developed UI's for 20 years, why go back to the begining and not take in mind what we have learned during these years. Different form and colors of folders, databases, files, entity diagrams etc give you a clear and fast picture where you have everything.. I have tested VS 2012 for 2 weeks, but still wants to go back to 2010 no matter how hard I try to like the UI. That's not god i think..

4 years ago

What are you thinking

Everything is monochrome. Was colouring pixels that much of a performance sink? Would like to know the design theory behind this one….

I have installed VS 2012 RC in Windows 8 RP and use it to create my project. It's OK. But after installing Office 2013 CP, when I try to launch VS, a error window pop up. Its caption is "devenv.exe – Entry Point Not Found" and text is "The procedure entry point _Atomic_fetch_sub_4 could not be located in the dynamic link library C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0Common7IDEdevenv.exe.". I have try to uninstall and re-install VS, but this issue is still appear. I don't know it is VS's or Office's issue.

4 years ago

Chris

Trying to get used to it but the icons in the solution explorer are really offensive to my eyes!

4 years ago

G.T.

The UI looks wonderful, keep it as is, and lets us see how many licenses you will sell 🙂

4 years ago

Richard Collette

And the RC UI still sucks with no color and all caps. I can see a flat clean UI being advantageous but monochromatic and ALL CAPS I cannot.

4 years ago

devkumar

windows 8 The .Net Framework installed on this machine does not meet the minimum required version: 4.5.50501.

4 years ago

Daniel

Unable to connect to remote database with VS2012 RC. Its really frustrating to download an app so cool as this and it then flops.